Daytime running lights dim/flickering

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I disagree. MNAO should have some standard to compensate those 2016 CX-5 owners who unfortunately have major design flaw on their LED headlights. For example, earlier last year a friend of mine his DRLs started flickering at the 37th month and 20K miles. MNAO was not willing to cover the most and he had to pay $400 for both. He refused as there're many at the time got free replacement without warranty, some even had 60K+ miles.

Does anyone what design/manufacturing flaw causes these lights to fail prematurely? I'm sure the Mazda engineers know, but I've never read the explanation in this site. Mine are to be replaced Monday and I'm going to ask the service rep if she has been instructed to return the bad units to Mazda or just toss them in the trash like any other broken part.

Though I haven't seen it too often, I have seen other makes of cars with either partial or full failure of the LED running lights. It seems LED lighting is likely to become pretty much universal as time passes and perhaps manufacturers will want to reconsider making these sealed units. I don't know how much additional cost would be involved in designing these units to allow replacement of defective parts, but even if failure is rare, most owners are going to howl when faced with a $1000 bill to replace a headlight. The last halogen headlight bulb I replaced cost me less than $10 to buy.

SkyActiv Member

Does anyone what design/manufacturing flaw causes these lights to fail prematurely? I'm sure the Mazda engineers know, but I've never read the explanation in this site. Mine are to be replaced Monday and I'm going to ask the service rep if she has been instructed to return the bad units to Mazda or just toss them in the trash like any other broken part.

Though I haven't seen it too often, I have seen other makes of cars with either partial or full failure of the LED running lights. It seems LED lighting is likely to become pretty much universal as time passes and perhaps manufacturers will want to reconsider making these sealed units. I don't know how much additional cost would be involved in designing these units to allow replacement of defective parts, but even if failure is rare, most owners are going to howl when faced with a $1000 bill to replace a headlight. The last halogen headlight bulb I replaced cost me less than $10 to buy.

2016 Mazda CX-5 GT AWD w/Tech Pkg. Plano, TX

Does anyone what design/manufacturing flaw causes these lights to fail prematurely? I'm sure the Mazda engineers know, but I've never read the explanation in this site. Mine are to be replaced Monday and I'm going to ask the service rep if she has been instructed to return the bad units to Mazda or just toss them in the trash like any other broken part.

Though I haven't seen it too often, I have seen other makes of cars with either partial or full failure of the LED running lights. It seems LED lighting is likely to become pretty much universal as time passes and perhaps manufacturers will want to reconsider making these sealed units. I don't know how much additional cost would be involved in designing these units to allow replacement of defective parts, but even if failure is rare, most owners are going to howl when faced with a $1000 bill to replace a headlight. The last halogen headlight bulb I replaced cost me less than $10 to buy.

During my replacement under warranty, which was March last year, Mazda NAO did ask the whole unit back as I tried to get failed LED headlights to disassemble the unit and find out what happened. In the mean time Mazda and Stanley should have done the investigation and revised the LED DRL design after many tries based on failed units collected. The latest J version seemed to have fixed the problem.

From the look of J version, Stanley apparently reduced the LED light output, and used different LED setup with more common and cheaper dot matrix LED arrangement replacing original fiber optic style on DRL. IMO reducing the power, hence less heat, is the key for the fix. And thiss definitely a major design flaw to begin with.

Had my DRL on my driver's side go out last week, dealer quoted ~$1400 to get it replaced and I asked about Mazda Canada coverage, they've since come back and said Mazda Canada will cover all of it this time even though its not covered by warranty. Bought the car from dealer with CPO powertrain warranty about 16 months ago and have done all my maintenance items with Mazda since, so pretty happy with the outcome, just hope the Passenger side lasts, car only has 35K kms (22K miles) on it so far.

I don't think heat from the LED's themselves is the suspected cause, but excess heat in the electrical circuit that drives the LED's. Most LED's run on something close to 5V, which means they have to have an electrical circuit to provide the LED's with a reduced (from 12V) and stable power supply. The components needed to accomplish this voltage reduction can get quite hot in operation and without adequate ventilation or heat sinking, this heat can damage circuit components.

+1 failure, driver side flickering and dim... ~55k miles. No warranty... I started by calling corporate and they said I need an official diagnosis before then can do anything or talk about what*s wrong... hoping I don*t get slapped with a diagnostic fee and a fix fee. No way I*m paying for this fix especially with all of the help I see others have gotten. My Mazda dealer always treats customers like ****, so not too happy to have to try to work with them today.

How is this not a recall or service bulletin? If you look at 2015 registered complaints you see under 100, while the 2016 has 100 on the lights alone!

That*s more recorded issues for one problem than all issues combined on the prior year model!

U.S. law does not require DRL's so a failure of them can viewed as a mere cosmetics issue, not a safety one. I think Canadian law does requires DRL's, so it maybe different up there. The service rep at my local dealer said she'd seen quite a few failed DRL's, but I was the first person who had contacted Mazda corporate to get a deal on replacing them ($100 each for me on a CX-5 with 75,000 miles).

Had my lights flickering about a year back and now they're dead on both sides. Glad I found this thread, so many people with drl trouble. I am curious if anyone in Canada recently had luck with Mazda covering repairs? Mine is 2016.5 out-of-warranty, high mileage ( but I have MAP extended warranty which doesn't cover LEDs ).

The dealer said something charge like $230 just for diagnosis and then like $1700 ( or something equally ridiculous) for replacing.

I am planning to call Mazda Canada Customer Service but want to be armed with the latest info.

2016 Mazda CX-5 GT AWD w/Tech Pkg. Plano, TX

Had my lights flickering about a year back and now they're dead on both sides. Glad I found this thread, so many people with drl trouble. I am curious if anyone in Canada recently had luck with Mazda covering repairs? Mine is 2016.5 out-of-warranty, high mileage ( but I have MAP extended warranty which doesn't cover LEDs ).

The dealer said something charge like $230 just for diagnosis and then like $1700 ( or something equally ridiculous) for replacing.

I am planning to call Mazda Canada Customer Service but want to be armed with the latest info.

One of my LED DRL's quit working on my 2016 after about 3.5 years of ownership. By contacting Mazda customer service, I ended up getting it replaced for free. It's a little disappointing that the new one isn't as bright as the original so they don't match, but I'm really glad that Mazda fixed it even though it was no longer under warranty.